David Carr: Punching Holes In Claims Of Media Bias

David Carr in the New York Times writes “Tired Cries of Media Bias Don’t Help Romney.” The term “mainstream media” doesn’t mean as much when more and more Americans get their news from social media and other non-traditional platforms.

As the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press pointed out last week, digital news has surpassed radio and newspapers and is quickly catching up to television. Social networks are soaring as a source of news, and since 2010, the report said, “there has been a sharp decline in the proportion of Americans who got news yesterday only from a traditional news platform — from 40 percent then to 33 percent currently.”

Even if legacy media still maintained some kind of death grip on American consciousness, it would be hard to claim that the biggest players in those industries are peddling liberal theology.

Think about it. What is the No. 1 newspaper in America by circulation? Why, that would be The Wall Street Journal, a bastion of conservative values on its editorial pages and hardly a suspect when it comes to lefty news coverage. (Though it’s worth pointing out that the paper has published some very tough coverage of Mr. Romney.)

What about radio? Three of the top five radio broadcasters — Mr. Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and the recently departed Michael Savage — have outdrawn NPR’s morning and evening programs by a wide margin. In cable television, Fox News continues to pummel the competition.

Let Mitt Romney and his supporters believe that he’s doing fine and it’s just the “liberal media” conspiring against him. They’ll wake up shocked on election day, and then blame the “liberal media” for his loss.